Las Vegas 21st -24th Sept

After Jacki's visit to Vancouver we hadn't had enough so we headed down to Las Vegas to catch-up with her again. It was well timed to because I got a phone call on the Friday before from UBC offering me a job. It meant we didn't have to worry so much about our budget while we holidayed.

We wanted to cram as much Vegas in as we could so Rach finished a night shift on the 21st and basically came home and changed before we headed to the airport.
The flight down was great, we headed down the coast then inland over forests around Portland, over a few remaining Californian fires then over the desert to Vegas. We knew where we were as soon as you step off the plane, they have slot machines in the waiting area.

We got a cab to our hotel, Excalibur, and met Jacki. We had prebooked tickets to Cirque du Solei at TI (used to be treasure Island) so we went for a trek down The Strip to collect the tickets. The Strip was crazy! It was packed with tourists and the two mile walk to TI took us two hours. We did stop for photos a few times along the way, just like everyone else. We had tickets to the medieval show at Excalibur that night so we had to get back quick so we got the monorail back. The Medieval show was good, pretty similar to do show Rach and I went to in LA. Its a medieval 'competition' between the different seating sections. Its really a good show with some American cheese thrown in. Surprisingly Rach had managed to stay awake all this time - 36 hours! We were well overdue a sleep when the show was over so headed back to our room.

On Tuesday we had a lot of Casinos to explore. We started by heading south to the Luxor and grabbing some breakfast/lunch. We then continued south to Mandalay Bay. This is as far south as we went, each of the hotel/casinos has a different theme and it is amazing the lengths some of them go to with the themes. After exploring Mandalay Bay we caught the free train back to Excalibur. We then continued north exploring New York New York, Monte Carlo, Paris, Ballys, The Flamingo and back to Excalibur. I can't really explain how cool these casinos were, hopefully the photos do a good job of it.







The Cirque du Solei show was on tonight so we got dressed up and jumped back on the monorail to TI. The show was amazing! We left a little disappointed that it hadn't gone on for longer - that's got to be a good sign. There were amazing tricks on the trapeze and an old guy was hilarious playing/interfering with the show, although he was obviously part of it. While way up that end of the strip we stuck around to catch the show outside TI, Sirens. We waited around for almost an hour to catch the show... and it was disappointing. Apparently used to be a great battle between pirates... now its like that but with softcore porn included and a script written by testosterone OD-ing teenagers. The volcano outside the Mirage was great. They use water, light and fire to simulate the island in the middle of their water feature blowing up, and the effect works really well.

After the show we continued inside the Mirage and had a look around then onto the Bellagio. Unfortunately by the time we got there the water fountain display had stopped for the night. After finding that out we decided it was time to start heading back to the hotel for bed. On the way we thought we should do a little bit of gambling while we were there. I put a couple of dollars into the machine and managed to spend it all in one spin, my Las Vegas gambling was done in a couple of seconds. The others managed to carry on for a couple of minutes before the money ran out. After all that excitement it was definitely time for bed.

We still had a lot to get done on Wednesday. We still had some time left on our 24 monorail tickets so we decided to make the most of it and head right up the north end to the Sahara and the Stratosphere. These hotel/casinos were obviously a lot older than the ones we'd been exploring at the southern end of the strip. The decor needed a bit of an update. Joined to the Sahara there was a roller coaster. Rach and I were real keen to go on the one at New York New York but while here we thought we'd go on this one too. It was only a short roller coaster but it was cool that it started inside, shot outside, went underground then up again... then the same in reverse. Rach and I then went for a look in the Stratosphere while Jacki went souvenir shopping. Unfortunately we didn't have time to go up the tower but we do have to go on those rides at some point.

We then headed back to the main section of the strip and had a walk through Paris on our way to the Coke store and M&M World. They were both cool, M&M world was four stories of M&M products, it also had a 3D movie. After all this walking and shopping we were exhausted so headed back to the hotel to drop off our bags. We then splashed out and went to the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner. This was a new restaurant, it opened only three weeks earlier. It was fitted with Microsoft Surface's in the waiting areas, I had fun playing around with it... then Rach and Jacki did too on our way out.

We then headed back up the Strip to explore the Venetian and go up the Eiffel tower at Paris. It was great timing as the Bellagio fountains started just as we got to the top. We watched that show and explored the views from up the tower before heading down and seeing the show again from the ground - just like in Oceans 11. After that it was getting late again and Rach and I had flights back to Vancouver the next day so we made our way back to the hotel for bed.








Our last morning in Las Vegas was quiet, just breakfast at the hotel then off to the airport for us.

It was a shame our trip was packed into only a few days but I'm so glad we made the effort to go. We've got a list of things that we need to do next time we're there.